Mt Si
After our last official training hike up to Camp Muir last week, I felt like I needed to get one more hike in before our summit bid. We didn’t end up doing the training hike on Mt Si back in April with the rest of the group and considering Si is one of the better hikes to use for Rainier training, I figured this was one of the better options. Plus, it’s only a 30 minute drive from downtown Seattle — a huge plus.
The heat wave that started about a week ago continued this weekend, which meant that Jason and I needed to hit the trail as early as possible before it got too hot since it’s lower in elevation (~3900 ft). Also, Si is usually insanely crowded in the middle of the summer on the weekends, and being a holiday weekend I figured it was going to be even worse. So I definitely wanted to get out there as early as possible sometime between 7 and 8am.
We got to the trailhead just before 8am, and fortunately it was pretty quiet with only a handful of people on the trail, but it was also already pretty muggy. Most of the trail weaves throughout the thick forest which helped to keep it from becoming too hot. Jason was still recovering from the blisters he got last weekend on our hike to Camp Muir and he wasn’t totally feeling it that morning, so even this hike was quickly becoming a struggle for him. Not sure exactly what it was, but it even took a bit for me to get my head into the hike. Eventually I ended up heading up the trail on my own because all I knew was that I was going to make it to the top, but that was looking less likely if I had stayed alongside Jason at the pace he required.
About midway into the hike to the top I finally was able to really get into it and my focus, as well as my pace, kicked into high gear. Soon I was passing pretty much everyone I came across on the way up. Perhaps I pushed it a little too much too quickly because as I approached the summit, I quickly began to crash. Some of it was mental, though, as I had climbed this mountain several times in the past and from what I recalled visually I was closer to the top than I really was. So at this point I was definitely fighting with my head who kept telling me the end was just around that corner or that ridge only to realize it really wasn’t.
The last couple hundred feet below the summit got really steep, but eventually I made it. In just under two hours I arrived to the summit of Si and was able to enjoy the views and clear skies surrounding North Bend. I would have been able to enjoy it more if it weren’t for the huge-ass flies constantly swarming and biting me. At some point while I was on the summit, Jason had hiked about two-thirds of the way up and decided to turn around since he was exhausted and didn’t want to make his blisters worse than they already were. Shortly thereafter I began my descent as well.
The descent took about an 1.5 hours as one of my knees was giving me hell. I came across a few other hikes who were clearly also training for Rainier due to the size and weight of their packs. I stopped to chat with one of the hikers who inquired about my mountaineering boots I was wearing who was also training for Rainer. But he was really struggling with a massive pack that supposedly weighed in at 70 pounds! I was only carrying 30 pounds and was only expecting to have 35-40 pounds for our official climb.
Sometime between noon and 1p I had met up with Jason at the trailhead and we headed back to Seattle. This was a nice quick hike that hopefully prepared me a little more for our Rainier climb in a week and a half.